The Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge, on Feb. 27, 1776, lasted only a matter of minutes, but modern-day Patriots like to take their time celebrating it.

This year’s anniversary observances — at the Moores Creek National Battlefield, near Currie in what is now Pender County — will run over most of a weekend, Feb. 27 and 28.

As in past years, a wreath-laying ceremony is planned, and costumed re-enactors (both Patriot and Scottish Loyalist) will set up camps, drill, fire their muskets and cannon, play period fife-and-drum music and generally demonstrate was life was like for Revolutionary War soldiers in the field.

Storytellers will be on hand on Saturday, Feb. 27, to entertain youngsters (and adults). Among them will be Wilmington author Blonnie Wyche, whose young-adult novels “The Anchor” and “Cecilia’s Harvest” cover the Stamp Act and Revolutionary War periods along the Lower Cape Fear.

Organizers have also arranged a number of lectures, and this year they snagged an especially intriguing figure: Lawrence Babits, George Washington professor of marine archaeology and history at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.

Babits has used his archaeological skills to help make sense of battlefields across the American Southeast. He is the author of two major Revolutionary War histories: “Devil of a Whipping,” about the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina, and “Long, Obstinate and Bloody,” about the campaign that led up to the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, near modern-day Greensboro. (That was the battle depicted in the climax of the Mel Gibson movie, “The Patriot.”)

Babits will talk about colonial life, the militia and its weaponry in an address at 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 27, on the battlefield. Admission is free.

Actually, “Patriot” forces LOST at Guilford Courthouse. We simply bled the British to the point that they forced to retire to Wilmington without a good portion of their men and luggage. We won a resounding victory earlier at Cowpens. Most of what was depicted in the move was a figment of Mel Gibson’s vivid and warped imagination.

About This Blog

This is an emporium for all things literary: occasional book reviews, local book news, items about authors (mostly from the Cape Fear area but occasional visitors) and miscellaneous rants.

The usual author is Ben Steelman, feature writer and book columnist for the Star-News. He’s that shaggy, slightly smelly character you spot lurking in the back aisles of your local bookstore. Physically, he has more than a passing resemblance to Ignatius J. Reilly, hero of John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces” — some observers have noted other parallels as well.